A fifth and larger wave of laws began with the merging of separate health decisions that states had already passed. This is partly due to the lack of public understanding of these legal instruments and their lack of use. Most estimates of graduation rates in the early 1990s were about 20% or less.52 A significant lack of awareness and a misunderstanding of living wills remained.53 Although the state pension law is far from the model advocated by Lo and Steinbrook, the growing importance of a communication approach is reflected in progressive but real steps to simplify state law. in particular with regard to mandatory forms or language. As mentioned earlier, the simplification model of the Uniform Health Care Decisions Act of 1993, which led a number of States to consolidate different parts of the provisions relating to health decisions into comprehensive legislation. Another possible simplification measure is whether state law has become simple enough to allow for a single precautionary form to meet the legal requirements of all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The living will of the Five Vows provides for such a measure. Finally, and most directly related to living wills, Congress passed a federal preventive care policy in 1996 that applies specifically to military personnel: you should discuss the changes with your primary care physician and ensure that a new policy replaces an old policy in your medical record. New policies must also be added to the medical records of a hospital or nursing home. Also talk to your health worker, family and friends about the changes you have made. POLST forms are only available in certain states. You can find out if your state is included and learn more about www.polst.org. If you want to have a POLST form, talk to your healthcare team about your wishes.
The legal approach to early care planning may have served to hinder rather than encourage effective advance planning. An extensive study summarized by Fagerlin and Schneider and others shows that traditional living wills have had relatively little impact on end-of-life decision-making. In a nutshell, some of the main reasons for the lack of impact are as follows: Several other states without wording similar to those mentioned above are aligned with the Uniform Law on Health Care Decisions4, which provides such flexibility in the recognition of any form of living will – written and oral – that preventive language is not necessary.5 that the precautionary right does not create new rights And that the provision of electoral channels for the implementation of existing rights is an important threshold principle that can be used to launch a review of the legal landscape, as it places these laws in their correct legal context. The North Carolina Act expresses this view most succinctly in its letter of intent to its Pension Act: it could also be argued that informed consent must be designed differently in retirement planning because it is not necessarily transaction-specific. although it can be (for example, if the person has a certain vision of a particular treatment). Instead, it is primarily specific to health status, meaning it requires a voluntary, well-informed, and competent decision that some future adverse health problems are those in which the person chooses to continue living or not. The Institute of Medicine, in its landmark 1997 report on improving end-of-life care, also questioned the value of traditional living wills: care planning is a broader and less law-oriented concept than living wills. It includes not only the preparation of legal documents, but also discussions with family members and physicians about what the future might hold for people with serious illnesses, how patients and families want their beliefs and preferences to guide decisions, and measures that could alleviate financial concerns. family matters, spiritual matters and other problems that are seriously ill or dying and their critically ill or dying patients and their families are worried.82 National Institute on Aging (NIA).